According to the latest detailed specifications of the upcoming AMD socket AM4 motherboards, it appears that only the high-end X370 chipset will actually support Nvidia SLI while Crossfire will also be available on mid-range B350 chipset motherboards.

According to details originally published by Computerbase.de, and translated by Techpowerup.com, it appears that AMD simply does not want to pay the SLI tax for every chipset and will limit such multi-GPU support to the high-end chipset, the X370. The X370 will be also the only chipset that will have full 20 PCIe lanes with Ryzen CPU, as well as offer two USB 3.1 gen2 10Gbps ports, six USB 3.0 ports, six USB 2.0 ports and four SATA 6Gbps ports.

AMD's mid-range B350 chipset will have multi-GPU support but will limit it to AMD Crossfire, at least according to what we could see from some listed motherboards. This comes as a surprise considering that earlier AMD slides suggested that the B350 chipset motherboards will only come with a single PCIe slot and will not support multi-GPU configurations. The B350 will also offer overclocking support, just as the X370, and feature two USB 3.1 gen2 10Gbps ports, two USB 3.0, six USB 2.0 ports and two SATA 6Gbps ports.

The low-end AMD A320 chipset will not have support for multi-GPU or overclocking and bring single USB 3.1 gen2 10Gbps port, two USB 3.0, six USB 2.0 and two SATA 6Gbps ports.

Of course, the key differences between those chipsets as well as more details will be known as soon as reviews start coming on March 2nd.

EVGA has now officially launched its new and redesigned High Bandwidth (HB) SLI bridges that should double the SLI performance on the new Pascal-based GTX 10 series graphics cards.

The EVGA Pro SLI Bridge HB, as the company decided to name it, comes in four different versions, depending on the graphics card spacing configuration on the motherboard. It will be available in 0-slot, 1-slot, 2-slot and 4-slot spacing versions and is optimized for Nvidia Surround, 4K+ and 120Hz+ gaming. As detailed earlier when the Geforce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 were launched, the new SLI HB bridges are only compatible with these graphics cards.

As these are High Bandwidth SLI bridges, they should double the available transfer bandwidth compared to previous generation graphics cards and standard, "flexible" SLI bridges. Unfortunately, some of the first review results show that despite the promised "double the bandwidth", the scaling is pretty much the same as with standard flexible SLI bridges. This might be a driver issue so hopefully Nvidia will eventually further optimize HB SLI for more performance.

EVGA Pro SLI Bridge HB are a bit different compared to Nvidia's reference ones as EVGA has included a LED-lit EVGA logo that can be configured to display red, green, blue or white color, in order to match the rest of the components.

Although these will work only on Geforce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards, the EVGA SLI HB bridges will be available in three different versions, depending on the gap between graphics cards on the motherboard, including 1U, 2U and 3U versions.

The new EVGA SLI HB bridges from will also have RGB LEDs and will be able to sync with EVGA's GTX 1080 FTW and GTX 1080 Classified graphics cards for some color or just shine in green or white to match Founders Edition and other custom GTX 1080 graphics cards.

As you already know, Nvidia has focused on 2-way SLI with new GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards so EVGA is doing the same thing.

The new EVGA SLI HB bridges will be probably sold separately, similar to the previously available EVGA Pro SLI Bridge.

It appears that Nvidia's new SLI HB (High Bandwidth) technology is actually limited to 2-way SLI on the new GTX 1080/GTX 1070, while other SLI modes could be supported with older SLI bridges.

The new SLI HB (High-Bandwidth) technology introduced with Pascal-based GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards should theoretically double the bandwidth compared to older SLI technology on the Nvidia Maxwell-based graphics cards. Unfortunately, it appears that only 2-way SLI will be possible with SLI HB and those are the only SLI HB bridges that will be available.

It is still possible that older non-HB SLI bridges will work on the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 graphics cards so 3-way SLI could be possible. Of course, we are yet to see official reviews of the GTX 1080 which should be available on May 17th and hopefully some of the select sites will also have SLI performance numbers which will show the real benefit of the new SLI HB technology.

This morning, Nvidia officially took the wraps off the behemoth Quadro M6000 24GB, its Maxwell-based flagship workstation Quadro M6000 GPU with double the memory of last year's 12GB model, and perhaps the last release before its architectural successor, Pascal, is introduced next month at the company’s GPU Technology Conference in Silicon Valley.

The Quadro M6000 24GB, simply put, is the most powerful professional compute and graphics card available, designed specifically for high-volume datasets above 12GB per GPU. Nvidia claims it is intended for simulation-intense workloads, including in areas of seismic exploration, automotive design, large-scale visual effects and emerging virtual reality applications.

Last April, the company introduced the Quadro M6000 12GB, featuring half the VRAM as its successor, up to 7 teraflops of single-precision performance, and support for up to four 4K Ultra HD (3840x2160p) displays at 60Hz. Keep in mind that Maxwell is quite limited in terms of double-precision (FP64) calculations, as the design team has limited its Maxwell-based Quadro series to just 1/32 FP32. The exception to this is the Geforce GTX Titan Black, a top-tier professional grade GPU for both consumers and professionals which has driver-adjustable settings between 1/3 and 1/24 FP32 by switching to TCC mode.

The new 2016 Maxwell-based Quadro M6000 24GB model not only doubles the amount of VRAM, but also adds additional intermediate GPU clock points for smoother GPU frequency transitions. Nvidia claims this allows programs to increase and decrease in performance without interruptions to workflow. The new 24GB model also adds increased flexibility to software temperature control, allowing GPU temperature to stay below hardware slowdown threshold to prevent rendering interruptions. Lastly, Nvidia has added an “under-power” boot message to indicate if the card is not receiving enough wattage before system startup.

Thankfully, Nvidia is allowing the Quadro M6000 12GB and newer Quadro M6000 24GB to be mixed in the same system for rendering projects, but it does still depend on usage situation. For example, the M6000 12GB and M6000 24GB cannot be configured over SLI (multi-GPU) or Mosaic (multiple displays shown as a single GPU) as the cards use different frame buffer sizes. The cards will, however, run in the same system with the M5000, M4000, M2000, K2200, K620, K6000, Tesla K20 and Tesla K40.

“At Sony Pictures Imageworks, we regularly push the limits of our ability to display and interact with very complex scenes,” says Erik Strauss, Executive Director of Software Development at Sony Pictures Imageworks. “The Quadro M6000 24GB gives us a 10x performance boost with the throughput necessary to display these types of large scenes smoothly and interactively.”

“The new Nvidia Quadro M6000 24GB allows Redshift users to render scenes of stunning, Hollywood-level detail several times faster compared to any other rendering solution on the market,” said Panagiotis Zompolas, Founder and CTO of Redshift. “We’re super-excited to see what our users create using this GPU.”

Just as the Quadro M6000 12GB was introduced last spring at a $5,000 launch price, Nvidia’s newer 24GB model will launch at the same $5,000 price, bringing its predecessor down below $3,000 in some places.

Nvidia will be showcasing its workstation-grade Quadro M6000 24GB GPU next month at its 2016 GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. The card will be powering a majority of virtual reality (VR) partner demonstrations on the show floor, including those from Sterolabs, Lucasfilm Ltd., Redshift Rendering Technologies and Pixar Animation Studios, among others.

We had a chat with Alienware about a few new things that are coming and the company has mentioned that they decided to bring the Alienware 18 back to the customers. It was a very popular form factor that is now refreshed and back.

The company's representatives were telling us that there was a big demand for this graphics powerhouse and that this was the main reason why they brought it back to the market.

The machine supports Intel extreme edition, Haswell based quad core processor, up to 32GB DDR3 memory, up to four hard drives and gets a factory overclocked CPU. The CPU can be upgraded as it comes in a socket. You can put up to four hard drives that promise a lot of storage.

The highest end machine comes with two Geforce GTX 980M cards with 16GB of combined memory. This should be enough for any game today. The custom cooling brings a copper heat sink and three exhaust vents.

Highest end Alienware 18 sells for $4,649.99. The Alienware 18 with a bit more reasonable configuration including Core i7 4710MQ processor, 16GB RAM, 1TB storage and two Geforce GTX 970 cards sells for more affordable $2499.99.

We asked why is the external graphics missing as a support, and this is a technology limitation rather than a choice. Since the notebook already has two graphics cards, you cannot add the external amplifier as system would see it as the third card. Currently you can have maximum or two cards in an Alienware 18 notebook.

If you like the smaller ones there will be an update of Alienware 13, 15 and 17 coming very soon.

Nvidia has released the new Geforce 355.80 Hotfix driver which should fix a critical issue for users running an SLI configuration on Windows 10 OS.

According to the release notes, the Geforce 355.80 Hotfix driver will fix the excessive virtual memory consumption for SLI configurations running Windows 10 OS. It appears that the new Geforce 355.80 Hotfix driver does not fix anything else.

The new Geforce 355.80 Hotfix driver is available for desktop systems running on Windows 10 OS in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions as well as notebooks running on SLI configurations and Windows 10 OS, also in 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

Next time you get to complain about the lack of SLI support or Crossfire support, you will have to remember this number.

According to our well informed industry insiders, there are only about 300,000 people who own SLI or Crossfire setups. This doesn’t sound like a big number at all, considering that the PC gaming market, according to Jon Peddie Research, is a $21.7 billion market. This number combines CPUs, motherboards, GPUs, Monitors, peripherals, SSD and everything else you need to play games on a PC.

It is hard to find the right numbers on how many GPUs Nvidia or AMD sell, but you would expect that SLI and Crossfire enthusiasts capture a bit more than 0.3 million. This can also give you an idea that the GPUs we can so much about, including Geforce GTX Titan, Geforce GTX 980 TI or AMD Radeon Fury X are a tiny fraction of overall sales.

What we have been preaching for a while these 300K people really know what they are doing, most of them at least. These are usually super high end enthusiasts, spending a lot of time on forums, comment sections of tech websites. They are very opinionated and they are really passionate about who they support - AMD or Nvidia.

In case you are one of these 300,000 you should feel special, as not too many people spend $1,000 to $2,000 on two GPUs. In case the game supports it, and in case that the driver is there, there is no doubt that two cards are better than one. The big obstacle is that two cards e.g. Fury X usually cost twice as much as one Fury X card. The same logic applies to GTX 980 TI cards, and let's not forget that you also need a better PSU, chassis and so on.

Jon Peddie researchers are quite certain that the gaming market will grow from the existing $21.71 billion to $23.11 billion market by 2017, and with that we expect that the number of SLI and Crossfire setups will grow.

Innovations like G-Sync and FreeSync have definitely boosted monitor sales and many people want to get 3840x2160 aka 4K monitors or some curved or wide screen monitors to make their gaming better.

In case you own a mainstream card such as the Geforce GTX 760 / 960 or Radeon R9 280 / 380, don’t be sad, you are still better off than more than 50 percent of market that are stuck with Intel integrated graphics. According to a Steam survey, the most popular "graphics card" in the world is still Intel HD Graphics 4000.

EVGA has announced its newest Pro SLI Bridges V2 which will bring several improvements compared to both reference as well as previous generation SLI bridges.

Featuring a new design that includes LED EVGA logo as well as new high-quality aluminum shroud, the new EVGA Pro SLI Bridges V2 are also optimized for the next generation display resolution and refresh rates, with a high pixel clock frequency design that gives best performance for 120Hz+ and 4K+ gaming, according to EVGA.

The new EVGA Pro SLI Bridges V2 will be available in 2-Way (Short), 2-Way (Standard), 3-Way and 4-Way SLI versions and, as noted, feature an EVGA LED logo that will illuminate on select Geforce GTX graphics cards including all EVGA GTX Titan, GTX 980, GTX 960 and GTX 780/780 Ti graphics cards as well as select EVGA GTX 970 and GTX 770 graphics cards.

Unfortunately, these new EVGA Pro SLI Bridges V2 are still not available but according to EVGA, these should show up in both EVGA shop as well as retail/e-tail shelves soon.

Currently available only at the US Nvidia Store, the new SLI LED bridges are based on a rigid type design so the graphics cards need to be in specific slots in order for them to work. Nvidia has launched three new SLI LED bridges, including 2-way, 2-way spaced and the 3-way SLI LED bridge.

The same Nvidia SLI LED bridges were seen in systems during the Nvidia Game24 event and are currently available for the consumers, at least in the US and Canada.

According to Nvidia, the new SLI LED Bridges will work on on the GeForce GTX 770, GTX 780, GTX 780 Ti, GTX Titan, GTX Titan Black as well as the new Geforce GTX 970 and the Geforce GTX 980 graphics cards. Of course, bear in mind that these will most likely only work on reference design graphics cards while we are not so sure about custom ones.

Unfortunately, the new SLI LED Bridges are currently only available at the US/Canada Nvidia Store, and hopefully, these will be available for the rest of the world soon. The price is set at US $29.99 for the 2-way SLI LED Bridges and US $39.99 for the 3-way SLI LED Bridge.